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Just finished another etmchat and I am in awe! I am still amazed that I can be chatting with people on the other side of the world sharing and discussing the same problems and concerns. Etmooc has opened up a new world to me. I joined twitter in the summer…got the iPad in September and since etmooc started i have discovered how to use both to connect with others. Etmooc has opened my mind to new ideas and taught me a whole new language and has allowed me to have new conversations with my colleagues. I feel re-charged and excited about the future of education. Thank-you conspirators and all my new etmooc friends I know now we are not alone!

I’ve joined etmooc with my PLT (principal learning team). Our learning goal this year is to better understand what 21st century skills are, why they are important and how we as administrators create and support learning environments where students need and practice these skills. As a first step we joined etmooc to become learners ourselves. My original thinking was I personally would learn about new technology available today and how to use it effectively. What I’ve learned is some much more than just new technology. My etmooc experiences so has helped me to touch on all our PLT goals and has inspired so many more ideas and even projects at my school. Unfortunately not all the members of the PLT have gotten involved in the course yet and the main reason they’ve sited is time. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and wondering how to answer their questions about how I have found time to think about the course. I think maybe I’ve just developed some new habits.

I recently finished Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, where he shares a framework to help understand how we develop or better yet can change our habits. His message about changing, controlling or altering our habits is to first notice the cues (the things that trigger our habits) and the rewards (the real reason we keep doing something or what we get from the habit). The next step is to identify the routine. The essence of Duhigg’s idea is to keep the cue and reward the same and to change the routine.

I’ve been thinking about when I spend time on this course or maybe better how I’ve added time in my day for this course. Last week I joined the etmchat on twitter and actually participated. Yes it was moving at light speed but I jumped in and contributed to the conversation. Every Wednesday I take my kids to their karate lesson and I sit and watch for an hour. Sometime I would do a Sudoku on my phone or read the paper if I remember to bring it. This week I used the hour to fit in the twitter chat. I realize there is lots of times when I am help captive like during the kids lessons (dance, music, karate, hockey etc) several time a week or when I am waiting for a meeting to start ( like school council once a month). I used the wait time as a new cue to work on etmooc. The reward is the rush of excitement from new learning and being able to engage with new ideas.

I learned too that I can be lazy in the evening. I turn on the TV after supper to relax and watch for an hour fully intending to do some school work or reading after a break. What usually happens is I get lazy and never turn off the TV and the evening slips away with none of my goals realized. I’ve tried to adjust my habit by watching TV with the ipad in hand. Now with the TV on, I start scanning etmooc blogs, then I end up exploring and downloading new apps and before long I’m in full learning mode and I don’t even know what is on TV.

I think my answer to my PLT’s questions about finding time is I’ve created some new habits. I’ve used some of the old cues, changed the routine and the result or reward is added time for new learning.

Sunday seems to be my day to blog. There was much to absorb in etmooc this week it’s hard to know where to start. To keep with the mission of making learning visible I’ll share a few insights but give them to you in chunks so my blog is easy to follow and right to the point.

I figured out Hootsuite (yea another ipad app – learning more apps is a goal for me in this course). It definitely helps me manage the twitter coming from this course and the other feeds I’ve discovered and now want to read every day.

I’ve come to appreciate the difference between social book marking and curation (i think?) as they were both new concepts before watching the session on them this past week. I’ve added Diigo and Scoop it (yea two more apps) to my ipad and have managed to save some surfing to both sites. I haven’t yet shared from these apps as I am still discovering them. Sharing will be one of next week’s goals.

I read many blog posts this week and found one by Sue Waters called Work smarter and stay connected in a learning community helped me discovered another new app Flipboard. This app also helped me to manage the flow of information coming from etmooc. Sue’s session this past week on blogging brought up so many new ideas and things to explore. I hope I have linked my reference to her above correctly and pasted photo’s from compfight with proper attribution.

I enjoyed the blackboard session on connected learning with every part of the presentation being new learning for me. When Alex asked: What does my PLE/PLN look like? How can I share it? I came up with this…

Alex’s next question was: How important is connected learning? Why? I think this is what i am discovering through participation in etmooc. I don’t have it all figured out but i see so far that this experience has opened my eyes and shown me that so much more exists outside my safe little world. I was feeling comfortable with life and like maybe i knew what i was doing but now i find this experience
has turned my world upside down. I think that maybe i am just experiencing some real learning. My beliefs and attitudes are being challenged. My brain hurts and i can’t stop thinking about all those blog posts and the blackboard sessions. Maybe connected learning is important because it’s through the questions and ideas being shared that i am being pushed to try new things and to discover
some new thinking.

Ok here I go….this is my first blog post. I really have no idea what I am doing. I want to learn how to use technology for learning so I jumped in to an online corse that will require me to use all kinds of technology I have never tried. It will be bath by fire. The online course is a MOOC, a massive online open course on educational technology. I am blow away that there are over 1200 educators from around the world registered ready to learn together. You can find the course at http://www.etmooc.org. I have been learning twitter for a while now mostly just lurking watching, reading and absorbing. I joined the google plus community or at least I got on and made a post not that I have any real sense of how to use google plus yet. This blog site is a bit frustrating to start as the cursor keeps jumping back to a different spot and I can’t seem to get it where I want it. I am also still new to the iPad I am using. Even though everything is new and confusing it is also very invigorating and exciting. I have never thought of myself as a real risk taker but I feel very on the edge of something exciting right now. Although it feels very overwhelming like third year real analysis all over again I am looking forward to this experience.